New Goal #2

You knew this was coming... but here it is anyway. I got a Kindle 2 last week. I like to think of it as the best day of my life. Wait, not your wedding day? Or graduation from your excruciating college (that merits further explanation, but it's really too involved for my current purposes)? Or moving away from Luck, Wisconsin... Rome, Georgia... Waco, Texas? Nope. The Kindle far outweighs any of them (my husband understands this completely, hence why he bought it for me. We have a very honest relationship - and by honest I mean blunt. At least on my end. I tend to throw things if he reciprocates and I'm in a bad mood...)

In a way, my reaction to the Kindle is nothing short of pathetic and I'm okay with that. Some people have babies. Others have pets. Some even have copious amounts of houseplants. And I salute all of them... even as their thousands of pictures cloud up my Facebook news feed. But, I have a wireless reading device. Haha! And I treat it like it's my baby... it has a sleek case that is lined with high quality padded leather (one may compare it to a car seat/baby carrier), it's constantly teaching me new things, and it never leaves my side. It also talks if I ask it to and goes to sleep when it's told. What could be better?

I am completely in love with it. Like the mothers who stare longingly at their new little feces machines, I can just stare at its sleek design for hours on end. I dream about opening it and reading all the hysterical memoirs I have loaded on to it by modern women with senses of humor much like my own. It truly has improved my life and gives me something to look forward to even on the most dull and ordinary day.

I am reminded of my childhood when I would beg my parents to buy me the new Babysitters' Club, Boxcar Children, or Saddle Club book or whatever other series I was reading at the time. The pure excitement and joy of reading that I have not had in almost 10 years. There were still hints of it in high school, but college destroyed my love of reading despite teaching me how to be a better reader. For that, I will always be grateful. However, it's great to be back.

This also leads me to my second new goal. I started this blog as a venue to essentially vent about politics and society. It was in the throngs of the 2008 election and the irrationality on both sides was staggering. So, I may decide to rename this... through writing this blog I think it's pretty evident that despite my total commitment to reason as a virtue and behaving reasonably... I often fail. Actually, more times than not. Maybe I'm still more reasonable that most. I like to think so. But, I think this will be a more interesting blog if it is more personal and less in the third-person abstract sense. One day - far in the future - I would like to write a comedic memoir much like the ones I am currently devouring. As much I enjoy discussing business, politics, and foreign affairs I enjoy real people's stories even more. After all, reality is often stranger than fiction, right?

So... this will be my experiment in personal writing (that ideally does not offend others or compromise myself.) I'll see how it goes. I'm guessing I won't post again for a month out of sheer anxiety...

In the meantime, you should buy a Kindle 2. It's an amazing way to change your life and improve the human experience without having to actually affect another living being. Thank you Amazon.com.

Literacy and the Digital Age

I was going to skip my weekly blog this week because I really didn't have much to say. I can't even look at the "Stimulus" bill with having to excuse myself to retch in the bathroom, so I didn't feel like writing about that... I was also confronted with a very disturbing case of homosexual discrimination that was put under the guise of an act of academic freedom. I have not felt that much rage in a long time. If there is one thing other than limited government I am in favor of, it is the full Equal Protection of the Laws as set forth in the 14th Amendment. I think this applies to all people in our nation and that homosexual discrimination (and anti-immigration policies) are the remaining holdouts in that area. And, people who use academic freedom as an excuse to slander and discriminate against another group is the worst abuse of such freedom. It makes me so unbelievable infuriated that I cannot write about it further today without suffering a heart attack from my heightened blood pressure, so I will move on to the topic at hand: the digitization of books (the product being called eBooks.)

Personally, I love eBooks for every possible reason. For the free sharing of ideas across generations, geographies, languages, and income thresholds. For the ability to publish your own thoughts and writings without having to go through a traditional avenue if that is not your goal. And, most importantly, to readily access information wherever you are. Obviously, the internet has opened this door, but eBooks continue it.

One of the best ways to access eBooks is through Amazon's Kindle (which was sold out by the beginning of December despite the economic slump. And it's not cheap.) Another, is through Google Books, which is making historic headway in coming to agreements with copyright holders to search and share information. Google Books also lets you add any title you publish (virtually or otherwise) to their site where it will be freely promoted and accessible through Book Search. I think this is wonderful... even though I don't necessarily look forward to having to sort through more items when performing a Book Search. Ultimately, more competition will increase quality because your work will have to be that much better (or at least have that much more buzz) than the others that are out there. People are also increasingly promoting their eBooks from their own blogs, website, and social media platforms. Good for them! The Internet Age is causing a societal shift in the way people interact and share information, and eBooks are only one way that is supporting this shift.

However, there are certain people who think this is terrible... that the mere act of holding the paper in your hands constitutes some kind of virtuous act and therefore all forms of digitized books should be done away with (you can't say banned because they don't want books to be banned in libraries... only online libraries.) They also think digitization will be the end of literacy and apparently Western Civilization as we know it because somehow this will cause all Publishing Houses to go out of business and libraries to be burned to the ground simultaneously. Then the government would obviously step in to prevent the digitized copies from being distributed to the masses and scourging them from the Internet and personal libraries and personal computers resulting in the mass eradication of all books in the world.

I'm sorry if I don't see the doom and gloom. This guy sure does though. And apparently 205 of his closest Internet friends.

I guess this all to say that I am incredibly pro-literacy and pro-technology. I think book digitization represents the best of both worlds because it provides broader access to literary tools... aka books... with less cost (to users and publishers.) Digitization allows for better and less expensive translation options which makes distribution wider as well. Also, physical libraries are not going anywhere. If they do, I will be the first person in line protesting the book burning. Until then, I can't wait until I save enough to buy my Kindle and will continue to fully utilize all online books that meet my interest or purpose. I encourage you to do the same. And if you don't know where these sites exist, just let me know and I can send you some great links!